The Rose Boys

Chapter Two

I'd found my classroom eventually. It was on the top floor, apparently that was where all the senior classes were. The classes went from the ground up, eights on the bottom and twelves on the top. You worked your way up at this school.

I had an uneasy feeling that unsettled my stomach. They boy back in the hallway had made quite the impression on me. I thought back to what he had said, my face grew hot with fury. 'I don't care if he's rich and important or not.' I thought angrily. 'No one gets to talk to me like that.'

The girl who sat next to me extended a hand after I walked in late, embarrassed myself and found the last empty seat in class. "Hey, you must me new this year. I've never seen you before." I nodded and shook her hand. "I'm Tracey, Tracey Adams. My family owns The Adams Group. They manufacture pretty much everything you can cook in a microwave."

I smiled thinly. "I'm January Grove, my dad works for the Government and my mom does work here at the school now." I waited for her to say something, anything. I knew that she was wishing that she'd never talked to me and wanted to wash the poor off of her hand.

Instead, she smiled warmly. "Hey, that's cool with me! I'm glad to meet you, I'm guessing you were born in January, so that would make you a-" she looked at me, waiting for me to fill in the appropriate astrological sign.

"Actually, I was born in October."

"Your parents named you January in October?" Tracey asked tilting her head to the side, her perfectly straight auburn hair tilting with her direction. "That's strange."

I shrugged my shoulders. "What can I say? My family is strange."

"You're a Libra then."  Tracey grinned knowledgeably. "I'm a Gemini, so we're compatable signs! I'm sure we're going to get along just fine. You can come and talk to me any time you need."

"Well, in that case... I actually do have a question for you: Who are The Rose Boys?" 

"You haven't heard of The Rose Boys?" She asked, blue eyes wide on her pretty face. 

"Well, I have heard of them, actually I ran into one of them in the hallway, he said something about war and stole my book bag." 

"SHH!" She said, raising her hands up in an attempt to get me to lower my voice. "If the other students hear about you being at war with The Rose Boys, you'll be in a lot of trouble."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"The students here aren't nice kids. They use ongoing wars to bully the victims of The Rose Boys mercilessly. The reason The Rose Boys go to war with those that oppose them or piss them off is to get rid of those students. They bully them until they decide to drop out of St. Clairemont and transfer to a different school." She explained. "You don't need them to know that you're subjected to The Rose Wars yet."

"Yet..."

"Well, it's not like they aren't going to find out. Since it's the first war of the year, you're going to get it worse. I'm really sorry about this but I can't really hang out with you during lunches and stuff. My parents said that I have to graduate from this school and I can't afford to be bullied right now."

"I understand." I said, smiling thinly.

"Who exactly did you bump into by the way?" She asked. 

"He was big and tall, dark hair..." I said, trying to remember what he looked like.

"Oh man... You happened to run into Darren Johnson?" Tracey asked, eyes wider than I'd seen them. "That's not good. Darren is the leader of The Rose Boys. He's also the richest boy in school. His family owns the Johnson Corporation. If it can be manufactured and sold in a store, they probably make it. He's the heir to a large fortune and his parents pretty much just let him run wild."

"How many boys are in The Rose Boys?" 

"Four... Well, there's three now. Alan McDermott left for France last year. Things with The Rose Boys have never been the same since he left. I think Darren's actually gotten worse. Other then that, there's Darren Johnson, the one you had the pleasure of already meeting, Nick Monterro and Kevin Brownstone. Those boys are the top 4 richest that ever went to this school. They're in a league completely above us." Tracey seemed to reflect, looking out the window beside her. Her focus snapped back to me and she turned to look me in the eyes. "Seriously, you need to stay out of the way of everyone." Her eyes flicked to the clock at the front of the room and the bell for lunch rang. "Good luck, January."

I walked into the little room where my locker was situated and closed the door behind me. This did not look like a locker room, this looked like a janitorial closet. I opened my locker door, the cool, grey metal was smooth on my skin. It was empty besides a crimson gift bag stuffed with green tissue paper.

"January." Was handwritten in curvy letters on the front of the bag. With trembling hands, I picked it up out of my locker and carefully pulled the paper out. In the bottom of the bag was a black box, an outline of a red rose printed onto the lid of the box. I pulled it out of the bag and lifted the top off the box. A layer of fluffy, white cotton separated me from whatever was in the box. Delicately, I pulled the cotton back and gasped.

It was a silver bracelet with a strange clasp and on it dangled a rose made up of red diamonds of some kind. I held it in my hand and stared at it dumbfounded. 'Why is this in my locker with my name on it?' I thought to myself. 

I stuffed everything back the way it was and put it in my locker and closed the door. I didn't know what was going on, but I was starting to get a little creeped out. Why was there expensive jewelry in my locker? And who got into my locker? Who even knows who I am right now? It's my first day!